In 3GPP Rel. 8, several kinds of transmission modes are defined, i.e. TM1 to TM7, and also dual stream beamforming (TM8) is added in 3GPP Rel. 9. The different transmission modes are designed for user equipments (UEs) in different scenarios (channel condition, moving speed, etc) and different UE capabilities. Allocating a proper transmission mode to a proper UE is a challenging issue. For example, if allocating TM7 (beamforming) mode to a UE which is not suitable to do beamforming, then besides no beamforming gain is achieved, additional overhead of demodulation reference signals (DM-RS) may lead to a loss of overall spectrum efficiency.
In view of the above-described situation, there exists a need for an improved technique that provides a cellular communication system substantially avoiding or at least reducing one or more of the above-identified problems. Hence, a system or method being able to provide efficient and improved allocation of transmission modes to user equipments may be needed.